Survey: Shoppers To Spend Half Of Holiday Budgets This Weekend

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LANSING (WWJ) – Those who dare to brave the Black Friday crowds will be dropping some serious dough.

Most shoppers will spend more than 50 percent of their holiday budget over this Thanksgiving weekend, according to research by the Georgetown Institute for Consumer Research.

A majority of consumers (63 percent) said they will use a combination of online shopping and in-store shopping to complete their list, while more than 40 percent said they would start shopping before noon. A mere 6.2 percent of respondents said they absolutely would not shop on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The survey also found that the only item people are planning to buy more for themselves, rather than others, is electronics. The vast majority (80 percent) said their overall holiday spending this year would either be the same or less, as compared to 2012.

Kurt Carlson, director of the Georgetown Institute for Consumer Research, said they issued the research because Black Friday is the undisputed busiest shopping day of the year for retail.

“What we discovered is that consumers are indeed looking forward to Black Friday, so much so that they are planning to spend half of their holiday shopping budget during this short time frame. One way to view this is that consumers expect to get half of their holiday shopping out of the way before December begins. And that’s just the beginning of the interesting insights we discovered,” Carlson said in a statement.

Here are some additional results of the survey:

FINDING: Most people (62.7%) see Black Friday deals as “good” or “very good”.

FINDING: People will be buying non-utilitarian items.

Top Categories: recreation, apparel, electronics, toys/games

Bottom Categories: home décor, home goods, tools and hardware

FINDING: 80% of consumers plan to spend the same or less this year.

32.9% plan to spend less this year than last year

47.3% plan to spend the same as last year

19.2% plan to spend more than last year

FINDING: Many Black Friday shoppers will need a nap.

27.2% will start shopping between midnight and 6 AM

16.4% will start shopping between 6 AM and noon

33.4% will start shopping between noon and 6 PM

16.4% will start shopping between 6 PM and midnight

The 2013 Thanksgiving Black Friday Survey was conducted in the first week of November. The respondents were drawn from an online sample of 1020 U.S. consumers.